Emma Gleason reviews the first night of Marlon Williams’ Auckland double-header.
Marlon Williams is on the home stretch. His highly publicised hiatus gets closer by the day, but before that, one final tour: Tā te Manawa. The name translates to “heart at rest” and it’s a poignant title for what might be the last time he performs in a fair while. Even though his last tour, for the 2025 album Te Whare Tīwekaweka, was less than a year ago, fans packed The Civic last night for another go. (Friday night’s show has sold out completely too.)
The splendour of The Civic is a fitting location for the Lyttelton troubadour; the velvet curtains and ornate architecture suit his theatrical, nostalgic sensibility as an artist. That was all stripped back last night. He took the stage at 8.06pm, just Williams under the spotlight, opening a capella with the waiata ‘E Mawehe Anu Au’. “This is going to be a special show… It’s nice not to be promoting one record,” Williams explained. Instead we were taken on a meandering trip through his full repertoire: “I’m like a tribute artist to myself”.
Delivering a sprawling three-hour variety show, fans (of all ages) were treated to a Favourites box of songs from his catalogue alongside a medley of covers including songs by Hirini Melbourne, Björk, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Leonard Cohen. There was another treat in store: Williams was taking requests. With the tone of a warm schoolteacher, the audience were instructed to raise their hands politely. The show was conversational in style, delivering lashings of the charisma and geniality that have won so many people over. That and his voice. The gravelly lows and velvet highs were strong as ever, showing no sign of fatigue or the tolls of the road.
Just over a year ago we were here, in The Civic, watching the documentary Ngā Ao E Rua – Two Worlds, which traced the making of his te reo Māori album and the impact touring was having on him. It was the first public inkling that he needed time out. He’s 35 now. Last night he told us he was looking back on his career.
Many songs were ones he hadn’t played in a “long time”, like ‘Love Is a Terrible Thing’. The first half ended with audience requests, including ‘Rongomai’ by Hirini Melbourne, and My Boy’s ‘Thinking of Nina’. That one was “a bit tricky” he warned, but did it anyway, complete with the “doo-doo-doos” that pepper New Zealand musical canon.
After 45 minutes it was time for a break. The evening was a game of two halves. After the brief intermission – long enough for a bathroom break and buying more wine – the stage was reformatted to make room for The Yarra Benders, the band Williams has played with for over a decade (and you can tell). They got straight into it, clustered around a microphone together, before dispersing to their assigned corners of the stage. Williams picked up a guitar; it was brand new, he explained, bought that day from Auckland’s Studio One Guitars: “My guitar fucked out before the gig.”
Diving into his past, they pulled out ‘The Ballad Of Minnie Dean’ and ‘I Know a Jeweller’, before getting into Williams’ special interest subject. “Breakups… are one of my favourite topics, even when I’m not going through one,” he explained, before launching into the slow, rolling heartbreak of ‘Kei Te Mārama’.
Williams wasn’t just revisiting his own past last night. Everyone in the room went with him into their own vaults of first loves and breakups. He has a gift for plumbing the deep well of emotion. ‘Can I Call You?’ is, he conceded, a “gnarly song”. It can leave you sick with familiarity if you’re not cool-headed. That was another one they hadn’t played in years. It appeared on Make Way For Love, the award-winning 2018 album that enjoyed considerable air time last night, as did the haunting ‘Come To Me’. “I’ve always loved the phrase,” Williams explained.“It just… gets me.” He loves it so much that he followed that with another version – Björk’s – to the delight of some concertgoers who appeared to be having a really, really good night out.
By this stage we hadn’t heard ‘Party Boy’ yet, or ‘Dark Child’. Promise hung in the air. Would the appeals deliver? Continuing the theme of breakups, Williams and his band cracked into a surprise, ‘The Breakup Song’, a 1978 hit by The Greg Kihn Band. For all this talk of heartbreak, The Civic felt like a joyful jukebox or a jam session – things were fun and getting funner. It was clear, even from the nosebleeds, that Williams was having a ball, so much so that during another request – ‘Bird on the Wire’!!! – he scrambled off the stage to dance with someone in the front row.
We were soon back to his own oeuvre, including a soaring rendition of ‘Korero Māori’ that had plenty of people singing along. And finally – finally! – ‘Party Boy’, an audience request that was yelled out by many (naughty!). Not every request was granted: ‘My Heart the Wormhole’ got a polite “no, no no”. He couldn’t do it. You can’t do everything. That’s why we’re all here tonight. It made the devastating ‘Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore’ hit that much harder. ‘Make Way For Love’ followed, delivering the yin to its yang.
After departing the stage, the inevitable standing ovation drew the band back for a handful more. ‘Portrait of a Man’ was the last of all. He’s ended here before. Where to next, after Wellington, Nelson and his hometown Christchurch, is not something we need to know. “Destinations aren’t my vibe,” he told us last night. “I’m more of a journeyman.”
